


to be always kind and true

by clarewithnoi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Declarations Of Love, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Hogwarts Era, Hogwarts Seventh Year, I love these two so gd much, Idiots in Love, James making the first move, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Mutual Pining, Sweet, can you imagine it!, jily, lily pining, this is just cuteness because Jily is cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:47:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29389359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarewithnoi/pseuds/clarewithnoi
Summary: “Has something I said bothered you?”James sets his own book down without even bothering to dog-ear the page.  Lily thinks that’s a very apt metaphor for the two of them—he’ll shut a book without care if he loses his place, and she’s got a set of leather bookmarks sitting in a drawer in her room.  He’d stolen one from her, a few years ago, but she’s not once seen him use it.“You said I’m allowed to not like your hair.”There are some moments that sneak up on you.  The profession of James's feelings certainly does so for Lily.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 49
Kudos: 143





	to be always kind and true

**Author's Note:**

> dedicated to my tumblr friends! and especially you, mppmaraudergirl! thank you for the first-kiss idea to accompany the dialogue I had!!
> 
> I apologize for any formatting errors; importing from Word is...not it, chief.
> 
> Now, onward...

It’s raining when he makes the observation, and neither this fact of the weather nor the comment itself are particularly groundbreaking.

“You changed your hair.” James says, suddenly, like he is alerting her to the fact.

“I did,” Lily replies.

A pause ensues. Outside the common room, the wind pushes raindrops into a diagonal path toward the windows of the tower, and the _tap-tap-tap_ fills the silence like a metronome. She hasn’t done much to her hair, really, just trimmed the ends and curled them inward. It isn’t something she figured he would notice. She wonders if this is the extent of his opinion—or the lack thereof. 

“Do you like it?” She prompts.

He blinks like the question is a surprise. She wonders how it could be—he’d just noted a change in her appearance with a startling amount of indifference. It’s not particularly strange to wonder which direction the monotone of his comment might point.

“Yeah,” he says after a moment, “yeah, it looks great.”

“I feel like you’re just saying that because I asked you.”

“Well, Evans, that does tend to be how questions work.”

Cheeky. Always, always cheeky. She wonders if he’ll ever be able to tone down the cheek. After a moment’s thought on the subject, she doesn’t think he ever should, but saying something like that to him right now would be unquestionably odd. So she doesn’t.

“Thank you for explaining that,” she sighs instead, “I’d been wondering. Of course, I couldn’t actually articulate such wondering, given that I had no idea how questions work. It was a vicious cycle. I’m glad to be rid of it.”

“Sounds like it.”

When Lily peeks up at him from over her book, he’s grinning at a copy of _Quidditch Through the Ages_. He has a nice grin, and it sits comfortably on his face, like his features were made for it. She doesn’t think he’d look very good scowling.

She returns to her book. It’s an old thing, a Charles Dickens novel. The title is inexorably long. _Never_ , the aunt of the main character is saying at the middle of her page, _be mean in anything; never be false._

I’ll try, Lily thinks, but the world is making it a little bit difficult. You try signing up for a war at seventeen, Dickens, and we’ll see how nice you are.

“I really do, though.” James says suddenly, and it prompts her to look up again. The aunt is telling Trot what else he ought not to be, but Lily will have to wait for the rest. James’s question makes her blink.

“What?”

“Like it. Your hair, I mean. I really quite like it. It suits you—I don’t want you to think I don’t like it.”

His eyes have gone a bit squinty as he looks at her, like he’s wearing someone else’s glasses. He’s too far away for her to pinpoint at what feature he might be looking. The unfortunate consequence of this is that she has to settle, simply, upon the idea that he’s looking at _her—_ her entire self, every inch not hidden by chair or blanket. James has always been good at looking at her.

Lily narrows her eyes back at him. It sends little flares of heat across her face when he looks at her like that, so she desperately wishes he’d stop doing it now, because she’s going to find it awfully difficult to remember what part of the page she was on if he doesn’t.

He doesn’t. He’ll probably keep doing it until she speaks again.

“Oh,” she says in a casual tone that sounds like it’s been withheld from air, “thanks. I wasn’t really worried about it. You’re allowed to not like my hair, in case you thought any differently.”

James thinks about this for a moment. She wonders what in that statement might have been so objectionable that it requires _pondering_ —because that’s what he’s doing now. She can see it in the little furrow between his eyebrows.

“But I do. And not just because you asked me if I did.”

He still seems dissatisfied with the route of the conversation, and she can’t tell if it’s because of his own statement or lingering disquiet over hers. The gravity of his tone seems a touch too serious to just pertain to hair. By the look on his face, he probably thinks so, too.

There are a few ways Lily could move this interaction. When she conjures them in her head, one feels like a leap, the other like a shuffle. She’s always been one to leap.

“Has something I said bothered you?”

James sets his own book down without even bothering to dog-ear the page. Lily thinks that’s a very apt metaphor for the two of them—he’ll shut a book without care if he loses his place, and she’s got a set of leather bookmarks sitting in a drawer in her room. He’d stolen one from her, a few years ago, but she’s not once seen him use it.

“You said I’m allowed to not like your hair.”

His ears are a little bit red, what parts of them she can see peeking out from behind the fray of dark hair growing in all directions from his scalp. The tips especially are a fevered sort of hue.

“I…yes?”

A year ago, before she began to love him in silence, she’d think he was teasing her with this type of circular talk. It would have sounded like nonsense. But she loves him now, in a way where she’ll invent hidden meaning for any particular thing he says, just so that one day she might be able to piece together the scraps and spell out something like _I love you, too_.

“So you don’t care if I like your hair or not?”

Leather meets the spine of her book, and Lily knows she’s not going to find out what the aunt advises Trot. The novel snaps shut between her thumb and ring finger. They’re sat only a few meters away from each other in big, Heads Commons chairs. They’ve lit a fire even though it’s still light outside; the flickers of orange add temporary shadows and contours to his face.

_“What?”_

“You don’t care if I like your hair.” The question is no longer a question. It feels like James has decided to leap, too, and she wonders which one of them will hit the ground first.

“I didn’t say that; I just said you’re allowed not to.”

“So you _do_ care?”

This is all beginning to feel like nonsense again, and she can suddenly relate with the frustrations of Last Year Lily. But then he sends a hand up to ruffle his hair in that stupidly attractive way and she’s very much This Year Lily without doubt or question.

“Why are you so invested in whether or not I care about your opinion of my hair?” She’s nearly dizzy from having said it, and she has to go over the mechanics of the sentence twice in her head to make sure all of the _you_ ’s and _I_ ’s are in their correct spots.

“I want you to care if I like your hair or not, that’s why.”

Lily pauses, and if she’s giving herself time to process that or time for him to retract it, she isn’t sure. “You…want me to care?”

James nods. This side of him, the bold, charismatic one, is one she very rarely sees when he’s not turned away from her. It’s what he’s like on the pitch, or with his friends, or sometimes in Head duties. With her he’s quieter, more thoughtful, stepping over words to fall into silence, humble and respectful and everything he wasn’t for the first five years she knew him. Lily’s never seen his eyes when he’s like this—they’re bright and diaphanous. They remind her of the Northern Lights.

If she’s to love him from far away, she doesn’t want to see his eyes like this again. They’re filled with too much possibility. She could be Narcissus and drown in her reflection in these eyes—the hazel tint of his irises makes the image of her glow. She has to try and look away.

James has passed the same amount of time staring at her that she has him, but Lily still feels at a disadvantage.

“I do,” he answers her.

 _Never be false,_ the aunt said. She wants to tell him that. _Never be mean; never be false._

“Why?”

“Because I—” an intermission of shuttering exhale, and then onward, “—because I want you to care…about _me._ ”

“You…do?” She feels exposed from her participation in this back-and-forth, even though her part in it has mostly been one- or two-word questions. They feel like big questions.

He staggers a bit at this one, and Lily places her book on a small table next to her chair to give him her full attention. He’s had it this whole time, but the illusion that it’s newly arrived might spur him on, might push him to say whatever he’s been thinking. He shifts and rolls his shoulders. The few meters between them feel very short indeed.

When James speaks, it’s not the loud declaration she’s expecting. It’s a quiet thing. It’s soft and fluttering and it might, for all intents and purposes, be her heartbeat.

“You must know,” he says softly.

Lily doesn’t dare to breathe for a moment to follow this. She dares to look him over, though, head-to-toe, up and down and back up again. He’s leaned forward slightly with his elbows on his knees. He’s got on corduroy pants and a Gryffindor jumper. He’s looking at her so intently it starts to make her nervous. There’s nothing about him that isn’t warm-toned and beautiful. 

Her eyes drag up over him one last time, like a sculptor on its model. 

If this is to be the moment she hopes it is, she’ll catalogue what he looks like to her memory, and she’ll collect it for a pensieve, and she may never be unhappy again. If this is to be the moment she dreads, she’ll do the same cataloguing, the same collecting, and she’ll remember him fondly, and this will be her goodbye. 

“I don’t,” she finally replies. It’s become inexplicably hard to look at him. “I don’t.”

She still isn’t looking at him when a noise erupts from his throat. It’s somewhere in the family of scoffs, but it’s not mean. It’s strangled and a little hoarse, and it leaves him as though through an attic window, where he can’t control its escape. She pulls her hands into fists at her lap and the only thing keeping crests from forming in her palms is the fabric of a red blanket clutched at her fingertips.

The sound of him shifting and moving is comprised of the stretch of his chair’s fabric, the soft _thud_ of his loafers on the rug. It’s the breath that leaves them both.

“Lily,” he says, and it’s so many things at once, to be _Lily_ and not _Evans_. She remembers when he earned _James_ over _Potter_ in her mind, but she can’t be sure how long he’s been waiting to baptize her with _Lily_. She looks up at him.

James stands only a few feet in front of her. He’s shifting from foot to foot, which he does often when he’s nervous. She thinks that if his hands weren’t clutched so tightly in his front pockets, one might have rocketed north to mess his hair. It catches her off-guard, how much she aches to see the gesture.

“James,” she rebuts. His first name is her only defense. It’s a weak one, though, because it tastes far too sweet as it leaves her tongue. She nearly says it again, just to feel her lips shape around the _a_ and hum the _m_. But she doesn’t.

He stands tall in front of her, and not just because he _is_ tall, but in that way that a person can achieve regardless of actual stature. He stands tall because he needs to, or because he wants to. She doesn’t know which.

“I’m going to say this one time, and then if you want, we don’t ever have to speak about it again. Okay?”

There’s nothing she can think to do but nod. So she does. He sounds nervous.

“Okay,” she says.

“I don’t know how you don’t know—” James begins, and then checks himself, and she’s glad for it, because that really isn’t a very good beginning at all, no matter what he’s about to say. “What I mean to say is, if you think…if you ever thought I stopped loving you, I didn’t. I haven’t, I mean. I haven’t stopped. I think I’ve loved you since I’ve known how.”

There’s a pulsing in her head that she wants to relieve, and she isn’t sure if the best way is to cry or to jump atop him. _I think I’ve loved you since I’ve known how._ He’s always been ahead of her like this. She can have Potions and Charms, but he’ll always win out in Transfiguration and declarations of love.

“Gods,” she croaks, because this is the moment she hoped it would be, and she knows it’s big and important and beautiful, but she’s starting to see it through a blur of moisture. “Gods, James.”

The shine of boldness from his eyes is seeping out, but it’s being replaced by something else, something just as effervescent, with a glow impossibly warmer. It’s getting bigger and brighter now, too, and she hopes it has something to do with the fact that she’s reaching her hand out to tug him forward. He lets himself be pulled easily.

“Come _here,_ ” she implores, “come here _please._ ”

She’s still seated in a big, Heads Commons chair and the fire still illuminates sweet yellows and magentas into the sharp slash of his jawline. James falls to his knees in front of her with something like grace that’s tinged with a heady bit of desperation. She likes it, she thinks. It’s like he couldn’t wait to lower himself to her eye level in any manner slower than that.

“Lily,” he breathes, “Lily, I—"

“I love you, James.” She interrupts him, and he chokes out a sob that sounds how she feels, so she continues. “I love you, so please, _please_ let me kiss you already.”

His hands cup her face with no further prompting. They’re soft but calloused from Quidditch. If she’s to hold nothing else, she wants to hold his hands. She wants to feel them sculpt her into the version of herself she’s meant to be.

“I love you,” he breathes, and then he slants his lips over her own, and she can’t tell if the Northern Lights she sees are the haze of his eyes or the colors exploding behind her lids.

She nearly gasps at the feeling of him.

When it’s summer, Lily wants desperately for the cold. When it’s winter, she shivers and yearns for heat. Kissing James feels like the sweet spot in between the two, the harmony between seasons she’s been chasing since childhood. There’s a fire that sits low in her belly; her arms feel cold and bereft where his hands don’t touch. His lips are the hearth on a January day and the cool breeze in July.

She pulls away to look at him and sees her reflection in his eyes again. The hazel has her glowing all over again, shining, and she wonders if this is how he sees her. She hopes so.

James leans his forehead on hers. “I never stopped,” he says again, like he needs to confess it. Like she still might not believe him. She closes her eyes against the puff of his breath.

“Since last year,” Lily sighs, because if she’s to see him in this past longing, to confront the depth of his feeling, then she’ll meet him in the middle and carry her own, give it to him, hope that he takes it with care. She opens her eyes slowly. His are impossibly gentle.

James cranes his neck forward to meet her lips again. The press is ill-timed with her growing smile, so she feels it first on her teeth before she can work to press hers back, untucking her chin to try and match him beat for beat.

She’ll read later that the third thing the aunt says to Trot is _never be cruel_. Lily thinks it was cruel of herself to keep her feelings from him for so long, to let them both live in uncertainty. She’ll never be cruel again.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed <3 
> 
> also not sure where the 'you must know' thing came from but I've seen it in a bunch of fics across fandoms and I just think it's the sweetest way to painfully declare your long-standing adoration to the slightly oblivious object of your affections, yknow??
> 
> leave a comment, come say hi on my Tumblr! @clare-with-no-i! thanks for reading :)


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